Five Years After the Pandemic, Realtor.com® Tallies What the Luxury Boom Left Behind
Five Years After the Pandemic, Realtor.com® Tallies What the Luxury Boom Left Behind |
| [10-June-2026] |
Minneapolis and Boise are the only markets to surpass their pandemic peaks; San Francisco has fallen furthest, but AI wealth is emerging as a counterforce AUSTIN, Texas, June 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The pandemic supercharged luxury housing markets across the country, compressing years of price growth into 24 months, but the unwinding has been anything but equal. Realtor.com®'s May 2026 Luxury Housing Report finds that only Minneapolis-St. Paul and Boise City have fully surpassed their pandemic-era peaks, while five markets, including San Francisco, have fallen entirely below their pre-pandemic baselines. The rest sit somewhere in between, each telling a different story about what happens to prices when the pandemic conditions that drove them disappear. To score each market, Realtor.com® measured how much of the pandemic run-up remains intact today: a market above 100% has climbed past its peak and kept going; a market below 0% has given back every gain and fallen further than where it started before COVID arrived. Nationally, the needle sits at 59%, meaning the typical luxury market has held onto just over half its pandemic appreciation. That national recalibration continues: the luxury threshold reached $1,283,432 in May, marking the 26th consecutive month of year-over-year decline, down 1.4% from a year ago. The pace of softening has eased considerably from the 5%-plus drops recorded in early 2025, suggesting a floor may be forming, and at 13.8%, the million-dollar listing share remains well above the 7% to 9% range that defined the market before COVID-19 arrived. "The pandemic didn't create the same luxury market everywhere, and the correction hasn't played out the same everywhere either," said Anthony Smith, senior economist at Realtor.com®. "Two markets have surpassed their pandemic peaks entirely. Five have fallen below where they started before COVID arrived. The ones still holding their gains have something the others don't: real reasons for buyers to be there that have nothing to do with low mortgage rates and remote work." National Luxury Overview: May 2026
Who Kept the Gains Boston-Cambridge-Newton, Mass.-N.H. (89.0% of run-up retained) and Bend, Ore. (88.8%) lead among markets still approaching but not yet at their peaks. Boston's sustained performance reflects supply constraints and a durable high-income buyer base in financial services and life sciences. Bend's luxury market tells a parallel story of lifestyle-driven demand that has not faded: the entry point sits near $1.8 million, and the top 1% of listings reached $4.78 million in May, up 7.7% year over year. Raleigh-Cary, N.C., Las Vegas, and Wilmington, N.C., each retained more than 79% of their pandemic run-ups, all markets where demand has continued to absorb a modest supply recovery. New York-Newark-Jersey City held 76.8%, aided in part by its December 2023 peak, the latest in the analysis. Nashville retained 66.7% of a run-up that doubled luxury prices during the pandemic, while Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury held 64.7% of its 68.6% gain, continuing a recalibration in Conn. commuter markets that has played out over the past 18 months. Markets Retaining the Most Pandemic-Era Luxury Gains
Who Gave It Back But a counterforce is emerging. A recent Realtor.com® analysis found that AI equity liquidity events, including employee tender offers and secondary market transactions at companies like OpenAI, Stripe, and Databricks, have kept Bay Area luxury down payments persistently elevated, running roughly 6.6 percentage points above pre-pandemic norms. On an entry-level Bay Area luxury home near $3 million, that translates to approximately $198,000 in additional upfront cash. A small but highly compensated AI workforce is introducing demand at the top of the market that runs counter to the broader correction. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (-54.4% of run-up retained) and Denver-Aurora-Centennial (-13.7%) have also fallen below their pre-pandemic baselines, joined by Urban Honolulu (-3.0%) and Kahului-Wailuku, Hawaii (-6.3%). Washington, D.C. retained just 3.2% of its pandemic gains, with prices barely above February 2020 levels, a reflection of ongoing uncertainty tied to federal employment concentration in the metro. Markets That Have Given Back the Most
The Million-Dollar Market in Context Methodology Luxury segmentation is based on market-specific price percentiles, with the 90th percentile representing entry-level luxury, the 95th percentile marking high-end luxury, and the 99th percentile indicating ultraluxury. All calculations are based on listing prices, not final sales prices. Metropolitan and micropolitan areas are defined using the Office of Management and Budget's OMB-2023 delineations, with Claritas 2025 household estimates used for relative comparisons. Where appropriate, we limited analysis to metros or micros with a minimum threshold of active million-dollar listings on average over the past year to ensure meaningful comparisons. Historical listing trend data extends to July 2016, but year-over-year comparisons in this report use May 2025 as the baseline. Luxury by the Numbers 90th percentile = Entry-level luxury (top 10% of prices) 95th percentile = High-end luxury 99th percentile = Ultraluxury (often rare or custom properties) About Realtor.com® Media contact: Emily Do, press@realtor.com
SOURCE Realtor.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Company Codes: NASDAQ-NMS:NWSA,NASDAQ-NMS:NWS,Australia:NWS,Australia:NWSLV |
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